If you are wondering “is online shopping safe?”, the answer is generally “yes”. Secure internet shopping is not even very difficult to find, but you do have to watch out for certain sites and scams that may compromise your personal and payment information. For safe online shopping, follow some basic safe shopping online tips and you should avoid most internet shopping problems. Our online safety guide can help your avoid some common pitfalls.

Secure internet shopping can even be easy. If possible, use sites that you are already familiar with, have a high public profile (like Amazon.com), or have been previously used by people that you know. When you are using new sites that you are unfamiliar with, there are a few basic things that you can do to help keep your information protected. There are plenty of consumer safety websites that keep track of internet merchants that have a bad reputation and many websites dedicated to collecting customer reviews of every merchant possible. You can usually check the person you want to buy from on one of these sites to see if they generally have a good or bad reputation. Also, very importantly, when you are checking out, be sure to check the address to see if it is secure. If it is, you will see the web address begin with “https:” instead of the normal “http:”. Most major sites do this to protect you.

There are an amazing amount of online merchants to sift through when you are shopping online, but using some basic strategies like this can help you find secure internet shopping and avoid less reputable sellers. Identity theft and fighting with an obstinate seller who delivered a bad product is not fun, so it is worth looking for a safe shop online before buying. Secure internet shopping is never far away as long as you are careful.